Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹⁵ They started to work on the 24th day of that same month, in the second year after Darius had become king.

The temple will be beautiful

2 On the 21st day of the seventh month, the Lord spoke again to Haggai, his prophet. ² The Lord told Haggai that he must speak to Zerubbabel and to Joshua. Shealtiel's son, Zerubbabel, was the ruler of Judah. Jehozadak's son, Joshua was the leader of the priests. The Lord also told Haggai to speak his message to all the people who had returned to live in Jerusalem. The Lord told Haggai to say this to them all:

³ The Lord says, ‘Some of you will remember how beautiful my temple was in past times. Look at it now! It seems nothing like it was before. ⁴ But now, Zerubbabel, be strong and brave! Joshua too, and all you people who belong here in Judah, be strong and brave! Now begin to work, because I am with you to help you. That is what I, the Almighty Lord, say to you. ⁵ Do not be afraid. Remember that I made a promise to your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt. I promised them that I would be with them. My Spirit is now with you too.

⁶ I, the Almighty Lord also tell you this: Soon, I will cause the sky and the whole earth to shake. I will also cause the sea and the land to shake. ⁷ I will cause people in all the nations of the world to shake with fear. They will come here to offer their valuable gifts. At that time, I will cause my temple to be full of glory. I, the Almighty Lord, tell you this. ⁸ Yes, all the silver and gold in the world belongs to me. And I promise you this: ⁹ This new temple will be even more beautiful than the old temple in past times. Here in this place I will bless my people.’ That is what the Almighty Lord says.

This is a song that David wrote to praise God.

An alphabet of praise^[a]

God rules the world^[a]

The day when the Lord Jesus will return

2 Our Christian friends, we must explain something now about the time when our Lord Jesus Christ will return. That is the time when he will bring us all together to be with him. ² Please do not become easily confused about this. Do not let yourselves become afraid because of false messages about the Lord's return. Some people are telling you that the great day of the Lord's return has already happened.^[a] Some of these people say that God's Spirit has shown them a message like that. Other people might say that the message came from us. Or they might say that we wrote it in a letter.^[b]

³ Do not let anyone deceive you like that in any way. That day will not happen until certain other things have happened. Before that day, there will be a time when many people will turn against God. Also, the man who is completely against God will appear.^[c] God will surely destroy him in the end. ⁴ This man will be God's great enemy. He will say that he is greater than everything that people call their gods. He will say that he is greater than everything that people worship. As a result, he will even go into the temple. He will sit down there like a king. He will tell everyone that he himself is God.

⁵ I told you these things when I was with you. I am sure that you remember that.

The believers must continue to trust God

¹³ We always thank God for you, our Christian friends that the Lord loves. We ought to thank God, because he has chosen to save you. God chose you to belong to him, as some of the first people that he would save. You believed God's true message. And God's Spirit makes you separate from things that are bad. ¹⁴ We told you God's good news. That is how God called you to come to him. He saved you so that you would join with our Lord Jesus Christ in heaven.

¹⁵ Because of that, our Christian friends, you must continue to trust Christ. Continue to believe the true things that we taught you. Those are the things that we told you when we were with you. We also wrote about them in our letter to you.

¹⁶ We ask our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, our Father, to help you. God has shown that he loves us very much. He has helped us to be brave and strong for all time. We continue to hope for the good things that will come. Yes, God has been very kind to us! ¹⁷ We pray that he will continue to help you and make you strong. Then you will always be able to do good things and to say good things.

The Sadducees ask Jesus a question

²⁷ Then some of the Sadducees came to see Jesus. The Sadducees do not believe that anyone becomes alive again after they die.

²⁸ They wanted to ask Jesus a question. ‘Teacher,’ they said to him, ‘Moses wrote this in the Bible for us: “A man may die and leave a wife but no children. Then that man's brother must marry the woman. Then their children will be called the children of the brother who died.” ²⁹ But once there were seven brothers. The oldest brother married a woman. Then he died before they had any children. ³⁰ So the second brother married this woman. But he also died without children. ³¹ Then the third brother married the woman. The same thing happened to all seven brothers. They all died but they had no children. ³² After all this, the woman also died. ³³ You teach that one day dead people will become alive again. So, on that day, whose wife will the woman be? She had married all seven of those brothers.’

³⁴ Jesus answered them, ‘Men and women who are alive on earth are the ones who get married. ³⁵ But God has chosen some people to live again with him. He will raise them up after they have died. Those people will not marry. They will not have husbands or wives, ³⁶ and they cannot die any more. This is because they will live as the angels live in heaven. They are children of God. He has made them alive again to live with him. ³⁷ It is true that God makes dead people become alive again. Moses showed us this in his report about the bush in the wilderness. He told us that our Lord God is the God of Abraham. He is the God of Isaac. And he is the God of Jacob.^{[a] 38} But God is not the God of people who are dead. He is the God of people who are alive. For God, all people continue to be alive.’